


Weathering the Storm

by kho289



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout - Fandom, Fallout 4
Genre: F/M, Other, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-03-09
Packaged: 2021-03-15 13:20:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29189940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kho289/pseuds/kho289
Summary: Nora was a young wife and mother who wanted nothing more than to start her law career. All of that changed the day the bombs dropped and the world ending as she knew it. Waking up 200 years later, she is horrified by what her world has become and is driven by one mission: to find her husband's killer and her infant son Shaun.Hancock is a man who has spent his entire life running from himself chasing an eternal high. Somewhere along the way, he managed to become mayor of Goodneighbor, yet, he is dissatisfied with the tedium that has life has become.Both of their lives change when a plucky former housewife walks through his front gates searching for her son and the drive to make the Commonwealth a better place in her wake.
Relationships: John - Relationship, John Hancock & Female Sole Survivor, John Hancock (Fallout)/Original Female Character(s), John Hancock/Female Sole Survivor, John Hancock/Sole Survivor (Fallout)
Kudos: 20





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! This is my first piece! Also, if you have already read the first chapter, I just added more to it because I accidently posted it before I was ready lol. Thanks for your support!!

It was a beautiful day for October. Nora had to kept reminding herself how lucky she was to live in the idyllic neighborhood of Sanctuary Hills as she fixed her hair into loose curls in the morning. While she applied her lipstick, she had to force herself not to think about her law degree collecting dust on their living room shelf. As she dressed for the day, she had to force herself to think how happy she was to marry someone as adoring as Nate and to have a health baby boy. She had to remind herself that she was lucky to alive on this beautiful October day. 

Codsworth came in and interrupted her thoughts, “Your coffee is ready ma’am. Heated to a perfect 200 degrees as you like it.”

Nora couldn’t tell if the old bucket of bolts was making a joke or not, but she couldn’t help but smile a little bit. “Thanks Codsworth.”

She could hear Nate practicing his speech in the mirror and decided to go enjoy her coffee in the kitchen. Sitting at her dining room table, she couldn’t help but think about how her life was a housewife’s dream: room for entertaining, a nice kitchen with all the newest appliances, a small garden perfect for gossiping while watching Shaun play with the other neighborhood boys. She could almost see herself filling the role of the perfect wife and mother, but every time she tried to picture herself doing that she felt a profound sense of emptiness. That role was for some women, but it was definitely not for her. Her mind drifted back to that law degree on the shelf as she read the paper. 

“Oh, there you are.” Nate said as he entered their dining area, “I was actually wondering if you’d like to go to the park today. It’s a wonderful day for a stroll.”

“Mm, I am sure that is the only thing you want to do.” She smirked.

“I will admit, other more impure things did cross my mind.”

“I don’t think I’m ready for another Shaun.”

Nate chuckled at that. God, despite their differences, she did love him. He was the most handsome man she had ever seen with his black hair and vibrant hazel eyes when she had first met him five years ago. Despite everything, despite the things he had seen- had had to do- after he was drafted, his eyes had never lost that sparkle and somehow he had never lost his belief in the American Dream.

Nate grabbed his coffee and sat on the couch to watch the morning news while she went to place her cup in the sink. She noticed the comic book Nate had left sitting on the counter.

“Nate, did you leave your comic book out again?” 

“Would you believe me if I told Shaun did it?” Nate said, laughing.

She laughed, “Well, I guess this one time, I would buy it.” 

Distantly, Shaun cried and she could hear Codsworth whirling as he went to tend to her baby boy. A few moments passed between them as they listened to the news.

“Um, actually, I was hoping to talk to you about something.” She leaned onto her island as her eyes darted to that shelf again. 

“Yeah, what’s up?” He didn’t even turn his head around to face her.

“I want to go to work at a nearby firm in Concord.” 

“Sweetie, don’t you want to stay home and watch Shaun grow up?” 

“I can do both.” 

“I just don’t think it’s a good idea. He’s so young and he will need his mother around-“

She cut him off, “What about his father?” 

“Of course he will need his father around, but not as much as his mother.” 

Almost on cue, Codsworth came into the room, “ Ma’am, I simply cannot get Shaun to calm down. I think he needs a mother’s touch.”  
Nate shot her a look that seemed to say ‘I told you so’ as she went back into the small nursery. 

She picked up her son and rocked him a bit, “What will you grow up to be little one?” She hummed a gentle tune to him as she rocked him in her arms.

“I fixed his mobile.” Nate said, leaning against the door frame, “If you go back to work, you’ll have to miss all this.”

As she rocked her son, she thought about the law degree collecting dust and about the application she had already began. No, she needed to fight the injustice in this world for her son, she needed to show her son that justice was still alive and well.

“We will talk about this more later.” She gently placed Shaun back into his crib. 

As they made their way back to the living room, they heard a knock at the door. 

“I got it.” Nate said as Nora went to sit on the couch.

She could hear the man easily from where she was sitting and almost laughed at his best salesman tone. 

“Good morning, it’s Vault-Tec calling.” 

Nate greeted the man and Nora quickly lost interest in their conversation after hearing that they had been pre-selected for a vault and something about Nate being a war hero. Instead, she decided to work on an embroidery piece. It was one of the hobbies that she picked up in college because it was cheap and kept her hands busy enough to distract her mind. Plus, it always took her back to her mother’s lovely dress shop in Boston. 

Nate shut the door and sat next to her on the couch, “So, we have a vault space now.” 

“I heard. It’s 111, right?”

“Yeah.” He paused, “Nora, we might want to start taking this threat more seriously. I think maybe we should take some time one day and pack go bags, just in case.”

“I think you’re right.” 

“Tomorrow?”

“Sure.”

They sat somewhat contently for a few minutes, simply enjoying the near silence of their lovely home. Nora thought about getting another cup of coffee, but instead went back to Shaun’s room to look at her baby boy. She felt Nate standing behind her in the doorway. 

“What do you think he will be?” Nate asked.

Before she could answer, Codsworth rushed down the hallway to them, “Sir, ma’am, I think you need to see this!” 

Nora rushed into the living room while the President confirmed that the end was here. 

“Nate! Grab Shaun! We need to get to the Vault!” Nora screamed to her husband. 

A moment later, sirens all around them screamed. As they ran to the vault as fast as they could, they heard their neighbors screaming and sobbing, they saw children standing by themselves as though they had been forgotten, and they watched helicopters fly above their neighborhood while tanks slowly made their way down their streets. Vault Tec personal guided those who had signed up for the Vault through the gates. 

As they passed through the gates, Nora recognized the voice of the Vault Tec representative begging for entry. She forced her self to go on. They herded the soon to be vault dwellers on a platform shaped like a vault door.

“It’s gonna be ok. Nora, I promise it’s gonna be ok.” Nate said as he held on to Shaun.

As the platform began to lower into their new lives, Nora felt her stomach drop as she saw an atom bomb denotate in the distance.

She found herself crying and shaking with fear as another bomb went off over head. She reached for her husband and baby as the walls around them stopped shaking and the door above them sealed shut. 

“I love you.” Nate said as she closer to him.

Their neighbors spoke quietly as they shook among themselves. No one could believe that the world above had actually ended and that they were among the few remaining. Nora forced herself to not think of her parents in their small dress shop, huddled together for comfort as they awaited death. She tried not to think of her friends, likely dead in their homes. 

“I love you too.” She meant it. 

Nate and Shaun were all she had left, and so she clung to them as the earth swallowed them whole, as the elevator stopped and they were guided into their new lives by the Vault-Tec employees. Instructions were yelled out to the small group of survivors. Something about vault suits and decontamination. Nora changed into the bright blue garment shoved in her hands and then she was guided through the dimly lit vault into another room with multiple large pods. She knew Nate and Shaun were behind her and had to fight the urge to turn around and run to them as she was guided to one of the pods. 

“These are just for decontamination.” The scientist next to her explained. “Watch your step.” 

Nora climbed into the pod. It did not look like anything she had seen before, but she also wasn’t a scientist. Through the window of the pod, she watched Nate climb into the pod across from her while holding Shaun. Seeing them made her relax a little. 

“Initializing sequence in 3…” A speaker somewhere in the pod said.

Her mind began to drift to what their life would be like in the underground vault. Would her son ever feel the sun on his face?

“2…”

Then she realized that they had made them change into their suits before being decontaminated. Why would they do that?

“1.”

All of a sudden, Nora felt extremely cold and then she felt nothing.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
She was extremely sore and stiff. She tried to stretch her arms out in front of her but her hands hit the cold metal of the pod door. Suddenly, her memories rushed back and she felt her eyes tingle with tears. She watched as Nate began to wake up and then she saw them. One of them was dressed in a white hazard suit while the other was dressed in some sort of armor. The light shone off the one in the armor’s bald head. 

“This is the one.” The one in hazard suit said as they opened Nate’s pod. 

She watched as Nate shook the stiffness from his limbs, “What… what’s going on?”

“Don’t worry sir, just hand us the baby.” The hazard suit said.

“No, I got him.”

“It wasn’t a request. Hand him over before someone gets hurt.” The bald one said menacingly.

She began to bang on the pod, “No, no, no…”

“You can’t have Shaun!” Nate yelled.

Then the bald one shot Nate, gunshot echoing against the metal walls of the vault. She watched as the hazard suit took her baby into their arms as Nora pounded against the door of her pod. 

The bald one passed her pod as they left and sneered at her, “At least we still have the backup.”

She kept pounding against the door of the pod, her hands sore and stiff, as she screamed out for her son and he husband. 

“Initializing sequence in 3…”

No, she had to get out of this pod.

“2…”

She braced her body weight against the door to try and push it open.

“1…”

Once again, her body was frozen.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~  
She woke up, stiff again, to the vault telling her that she needed to vacate because life support systems had been disabled. This time when she pushed against the door, it opened easily. She went to help Nate get of his, quickly pulling the pod’s door up only to find his bloody corpse and her son gone.

She had thought she had made up the whole thing. That it had all been a bad dream. That none of this was real. 

She screamed. She did not know how long she screamed, she only knew that her husband was dead and her son was gone. She only knew that she was alone. That thought ricocheted in her brain as she sat on the cold floor of the vault as she waited for her clumsy limbs to fully thaw.


	2. Chapter 2

Nora did not know how long she sat next to her husband’s corpse nor did she know how she found the resolve to continue on. She had no idea how the pistol got into her hand or even how she managed to open the vault and emerge into the desolate wasteland. All she really knew was that she had been turned into a human popsicle, everyone in vault was dead except her, roaches were giant now, and her son was missing. 

Part of her was still cold as she emerged into that irradiated wasteland, but the rest of her glowed with white-hot anger. How dare they turn her into a popsicle and how dare they steal her son and murder her husband. She would bring ruination upon all of them. She would end them. Her anger fueled her as she made her way to the husk of her former neighborhood. As it came into the view, she felt sadness weaseling its way into the cracks left by her anger. She pushed the sadness down as she forced herself to continue; she simply did not have the time to feel sad about this. 

She made it down the street, not even making an attempt to be quiet about it. After all, if this world wanted to kill her it was going to take a hell of a lot more than some giant roaches. Somehow, maybe through muscle memory, she ended up in front of her old house and that awful sadness welled itself. It was a deep kind of sadness, the kind that makes your heart feel heavy and makes it hard for you to keep going. Still, she tried to force it down the same way someone would try to force a too large peg in a too small of a hole. 

She forced herself to try and step over the threshold, but her feet felt too heavy. Before she could turn around and give up, Codsworth whirled up to the doorway. Codsworth was a far cry from the shiny silver robot they had purchased a month or after Shaun was born. He was now a dull dirty color with rust spots on several parts of his body. Nuclear annihilation had not been kind to him. 

“Hello ma’am!” Codsworth joyfully exclaimed.

“Codsworth? You’re… you’re alive.” 

“As alive as the day I was made, ma’am. It is quite lovely to see you again! You are just in time for dinner!” He paused as he looked around her, “But where is sir and Shaun?”

Her breath caught in her throat and her eyes became glassy, “They are…” 

Maybe she could lie to the hopeful robot.

“Gone. They are gone.” The words came out fast.

“Nonsense! Why I’m sure they are somewhere around here. Would you like some help looking for them ma’am?”

She did want help finding her son and she did not want to disappoint the hopeful robot, however, she knew that her boy was not hiding in the skeletons of ancient homes nor did she think her husband’s killer was simply waiting for her to enact revenge at anyone’s kitchen counter. 

So she decided to humor the robot and search the other houses. Really it was an excuse to not walk into her own and be confronted by the past that she simply could not face by herself. Even as the afternoon sun began to set, her and Codsworth searched. She found more out about her neighbors searching the skeletal remains of the old world than she had never known while they were still alive. 

She discovered one neighbor had been a small time drug dealer, another had been a doomsday prepper who had been proven right. While she went through each of her neighbors’ houses, she forced herself to become numb. She simply did not have the time to deal with all of her feelings. Codsworth was, for the most part, happy to leave in contemplative sadness. 

As they finished searching the last house, the robot seemed crestfallen, “I have no idea where they could have gone ma’am, but I am starting to get pretty worried. They must be absolutely ravenous. It has been two hundred years since the last family dinner!”

She nearly blanched at that last part, “Wait did you say it’s been two hundred years since the bombs fell?”

“Well give or take a few dings to the ol’ chronometer, it’s the year 2287.”

She felt her stomach drop, “Have you been here by yourself all this time?” 

“For the most part, yes.” That made her feel even worse. “I tried to go talk to the people in Concord, but they threw rocks at me.”

“Codsworth, I am so sorry. We would have taken you if we could.”

“It’s alright ma’am. You’re here now. It was awful before you got here though ma’am; it is absolutely impossible to keep the floors spotless with the way things are now and don’t get me started on the car!” 

“So you haven’t seen any other people?” She asked, snapping back to focus on the task at hand. 

“Like I said ma’am, I tried to talk to the people in Concord, but they threw rocks at me.” 

So, there were still people nearby. 

“Alright, tomorrow, I will head out to Concord and see if they have seen Shaun.” Finally, an objective to devote herself to, “Until then, I am going to get some sleep.” 

“Ma’am, the world is a lot rougher than you remember. You might want to change into something more protective.” 

“I think I will be fine.” After all, the only slightly scary thing to have happened to her after finding everyone dead had been fighting a giant roach, and even then, it was pretty easy to deal with. 

She still couldn’t make herself cross into her house, so she curled up on a ruined sofa in the house across street. The world around her had grown dark and quiet and she attempted to drift off to sleep. Only for her thoughts to scream inside of her hand. All she could think about was Nate’s dead body alone in that freezer, her neighbors dead eyes staring back at her through the glass of their pods, the skeletons in the homes she had made herself pretend not to see, her friends who had died too young, and her parents who had died all alone. Then, after she was already crying, she thought of her baby Shaun and where he could be. Was he warm? Was he fed? Was he loved? Was he even alive? That sent her into sobs that echoed off the emptiness of the neighborhood around her. When she did finally fall asleep, it was plagued by nightmares.

She woke up the next morning to the sun flitting through the glassless windows. She almost thought that everything had just been a really bad dream, but the smell of the ruined couch confirmed that it had not been a dream at all. She sat up, dizzy and hungry. She went out to the small stream and drank some of the water. It had a slight metallic taste and upset her stomach a little bit. She went back to the house she had slept in and found a can of pork n’ beans. After convincing herself that you can’t really steal from the long dead, she opened the can.

Surprisingly, it was not spoiled. It still tasted as gross as it had in the old world, but it was not spoiled. She ate it quickly. When she was done, she decided to set off to Concord. 

“Codsworth, I’m heading out!” She yelled not particularly sure where he was. 

Evidently, he did not hear her as she set out by herself.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

She made it to the Red Rocket gas station before recognizing her grave mistake. Codsworth was right, she should not have underestimated this world. She was nearly out of ammo by the time all the mole rats had been dealt with. They were ugly terrible things! She had a gash on her leg from one of their claws and distantly wondered if she would worry about infection. So she limped back to Sanctuary Hills. 

Codsworth greeted her as soon as she crossed that bridge with concern, “ Oh my! What happened ma’am?” 

“A giant mole rat got me pretty good.” 

Codsworth hurried into a house and brought out a stimpak, “Here, ma’am. This should set it right, but it will take a few minutes.” 

“Thanks.” She injected the stimpak into her body, trying to not focus on the rust or grime on the needle.

She watched the magnificence of old world science as her leg began to rapidly heal right before her eyes. It was an absolute shame that old world science had also ended the world around her. She shook the thought from her head. She had too much to do, after all. 

“I think I’m going to have steal some supplies.” She said, mostly to herself.

“Capital idea ma’am! But how are you going to carry it?” Codsworth had evidently overheard her. 

That was a good point. How exactly did she plan to transport it? Her vault suit did not have pockets and she doubted that she could store random odds and ends in the Pip-boy. A suitcase, maybe? No, that would be too clunky and cumbersome. She had seen a duffle bag around somewhere when they had been searching for Shaun, but the bag did not appear to be able to store much outside of a gun or two. She would need provisions for a journey as if she kept running into packs of mole rats, it would take a while to get from here to Concord on foot. She paced while she was thinking.

Then, suddenly, an idea came to her. If she could find some cloth in halfway usable shape and her sewing basket, she could make a rudimentary backpack. It would not be optimal, but it was better then nothing. 

“Hey Codsworth!” She called to him, “Have you seen my sewing basket anywhere?” 

“I will see if I can find it ma’am.” She watched Codsworth go back into the skeleton of her old life.

She went out in search of some cloth. Anything would do really. She found a suitcase on a rusted out car but was dismayed to discover that it was locked. If only she  
had something to cut it with. . .

She continued on her search and found a few old dresses and nasty tan suit at the bottom of a dresser. The dresses were in relatively good shape, and while the tan suit was dirty, its cloth was in fairly good shape. She tried not to think of the days when she would wear dresses similar to these and her husband would wear suits like this tan one, yet the thoughts still crept in. It was hard to not compare her two lives. 

The tan suit had thicker and more practical cloth than the dresses but she did not remember if she had a needle sharper enough to pierce multiple layers of the suit.  
She had really only ever done embroidery and counted cross stitch; they simply just did not require extremely sharp and long needles. Still, she could test her needles and see; after all, it would be a lot more practical. She was partial to pretty well-made dresses. It would simply be sinful to cut one of them up!

“Ma’am, I found your sewing basket. Sadly, it does not look like everything is here.” 

She took the basket from Codsworth, and did a quick inventory, “Thanks, Codsworth.” She said without looking up. 

Some of her embroidery floss survived, though quite faded, a few pieces of linen, an almost new bobbin of white thread, several slightly rusted needles, and two pairs of scissors. She had everything she needed to stitch something up. She looked at the pip-boy, and finally figured out how to use it to tell time. Outside of extremely limited terminal skills, she had no knowledge of how to operate anything like the pip boy. 

She tested the needles on the suit fabric and found that it was extremely hard to get the needle to go through the fabric so she would have to cut up one of the dresses. Looking through the few she had gathered, she decided to cut up the green one. 

She saw the sun high over her head as she kneeled on the hard concrete of her neighbor’s carport. She started by pulling the buttons and leather belt off of the dress. She thought about simply tossing them for a moment, but then realized that it was unlikely that there was a factory somewhere sill manufacturing buttons and belts. 

So, instead, she put them into her old sewing basket. 

She cut the dress up and began to stitch it together into something resembling a rucksack. As she stitched, she could hear her mother’s voice: “Remember, haste makes waste. It’s a lot less time consuming to do it right the first time.”

Part of doing it right meant washing and ironing the fabric first, but Nora figured her mother would forgive her for trying to get on the road as quickly as possible. It was hard not to think of her mother as she stitched. She could still hear her mother’s southern drawl perfectly in her mind, she could still smell the dress store around her, and she could still see her mother’s shrewd eyes. It was even harder not to cry as she stitched.  
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ 

It was almost dark when she finally finished. Thankfully, while she had been making the pack, Codsworth had taken the initiative to gather up some supplies. She thanked him and shoved it into her rucksack. She did not really want to explore the Commonwealth in the dark, so she elected to sleep one more night on the ruined couch and leave as soon as she woke up.


	3. Chapter 3

Hancock looked down at his town as he smoked the first cigarette of the morning. He loved the bustling town he had helped create. Somehow, he had managed to take the shittiest town of the Commonwealth and had turned it into a pretty damn good place: the stores did well, most of his residents seemed content, and trade caravans even stopped by sometimes. Truly, this was something he could hang his hat on, this was something that he should be proud of. 

Yet, he just felt emptiness. He was tired of the politicking that came with being mayor. He was bored with all the meetings that never really fixed anything. Most all, he was worried that he was becoming too comfortable. He often thought of Vic, the last mayor that Hancock had driven from Goodneighbor. The man had been a brutal tyrant and deserved everything he got, but as Hancock become more and more comfortable with being at the top, the more he found himself worrying that he would become Vic. Despite this, he knew that he could not stomach handing his town into the hands of someone who would mismanage and ruin his hard work. Besides, the people had spoken and who was he to deny their will?

Fahrenheit came into his room as he finished a long drag on his cigarette, “ Oh, good you’re up.”

“You know, you could have at least knocked.” He said, smiling a little bit. 

Fahrenheit did not smile. He did not think he had ever seen Fahrenheit smile in all of the time he had known her. To be fair, the Commonwealth did not give people much to smile about these days. Still, he trusted her with his life. As his second-in-command, he had to. 

“Anyway, the Triggermen seem to be starting to hole up around the warehouses.” Hancock leaned against the wall, “and I think Bobbi is up to something.”

He nodded solemnly, “I’ll pass a word on to Charlie that he needs to find someone to take care of our Triggerman problem.” He paused, “I am not entirely sure what to do about Bobbi. You got any proof?”

Fahrenheit shook her head, “Just rumors.”

“Well, I’m not going to throw someone out on their ass just cause of some rumors. Keep your ear to the ground for now.”

Fahrenheit nodded, “So what are your plans for the day?” 

Hancock popped a Mentat in his mouth, “Same as the usual.”

Fahrenheit nodded and left the room to stand outside of his door. He assumed that she assumed that he spent all days doing chems, and while that was partially true, he also took care of a lot of things during the day. He booted up his terminal and began to go through the town’s books. Then, once he had accounted for every cap that the Treasury of Goodneighbor had spent in the last few days, he went through the inventory of supplies that he kept in their strongroom for emergencies. Once he finished all of that, he decided that he had earned some jet and took a huff. 

Then, after his high began to die down, he realized that he should eat something. So, he dug out some extremely stale Sugar Bombs, and ate them as fast as possible to prevent tasting them. Then, he washed it all down with a bit of whiskey. He checked the time on his polished gold pocket watch, and realized it was time to open his doors for audiences. He spoke with several drifters over the course of a few hours who were trying to get better beds in the Old State House, popped another Mentat, and began to draft a speech about those Institute bastards. After all of that, he went the Third Rail and ordered a radstag steak to go and spoke to White Chapel Charlie about his Triggerman problem. 

He noticed that the Third Rail was pretty empty tonight; Magnolia wasn’t even singing tonight. Then he remembered that it was a Monday and most of the Third Rail’s customers were in Diamond City working or out of caps until the end of the week. He knew that the near broke MacCready was still hiding in the side room like it was not obvious he was a mercenary. Maybe he would end up taking the job. 

He took his meal back the Old State House, ate it, and decided that it was almost time for bed. 

He took his tricorn hat off and looked at himself in the mirror. He found himself wondering what he would have looked like now if he had never taken that chem. Would his face have been sharp and lean like his father’s? Would his eyes have been shrewd like his mother’s? He tried to make himself regret taking that chem, but he couldn’t. He knew that he could have never looked at his old face without hating himself. Sometimes, he still hated himself for being weak. 

He shook those thoughts off and stripped down to his under shirt. He laid in his bed- Vic’s old bed- and just let his thoughts run wild for a few moments while he absent-mindedly fiddled with his pocket watch. After what seemed like a long time, he reached for the bottle of Daytripper he kept next to his bed, had a few, and waited for it relax him. Finally, he drifted off to sleep.

The next morning, he woke up and basically did it all over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry that this one was so short, but I really wanted to show Hancock before meeting Nora. Anyway, thank you so much for reading!! Leave a comment or a kudos if you've enjoyed it so far, and if you haven't enjoyed it, leave a comment to let me know why. I love any and all feedback!!


	4. Chapter 4

It took Nora about two days to reach Concord. She had not ran into very many enemies on the way there, but it was still slower than she thought it would be. Her pack was heavy with supplies and she could barely make herself stop at night despite being exhausted. Even when she did finally stop, the noises of the dark Commonwealth kept her awake. She was constantly on edge but she knew that once she found Shaun and set things right, then maybe she would finally be able to relax a little. 

As she approached the ruined city of Concord, she heard gunshots and yelling. She drew her pistol; it was heavy and still felt wrong in her hand. In her old life, she could count the number of times she had held a gun on one hand. Despite only living in this strange world for a few days, she had lost count of the number of times she held her pistol. Still, she made herself approach the town for Shaun. 

When she got closer, she noticed strangely dressed people shooting at what used to be the Museum of Freedom. They looked half feral as they continued to shoot at the building and as soon as they saw her approaching, they began to shoot at Nora.

She quickly found cover behind a half-ruined house. 

“I come in peace!” She shouted at them from behind the house. 

Either they were ignoring her or they did not care because they kept shooting at her, only pausing to reload. She heard footsteps approaching her. She could not do this. She could not kill another human. It had been a struggle to force herself to shoot the animals that had attacked her. She could not and she would not shoot another person. 

Except, deep down, she knew she had to. If she was dead, no one would ever find Shaun. Nate would’ve been able to do this; he had been a war hero, and for whatever reason, Shaun’s useless parent had been left alive. She felt a pang of despair. 

She had to. She knew she had to. So, she did exactly what she did back in the old world when she was scared: she forced herself to stand tall and square her shoulders. She lifted her pistol in front of her, and though her hands were shaking, she knew she would be able to pull that trigger.  


A man rounded the corner with what appeared to be some kind of cage over the top half of his armor. He had a bat in his hand and Nora knew that it would take one swing from that bat to knock her out. As soon as his eyes saw the petite shaky woman, he laughed. She shot.

The gunshot rang out and echoed in her ears. A crimson spray misted her face and she could taste and smell the metallic tang of blood. What had she done? She felt the guilt blossoming her stomach and she nearly retched. By God, what had she done? She was a murderer. She was worst than a murderer. After all, she had tried to justify the act to herself. 

She had done what she had to do. 

She wiped the blood off her face with the bright blue sleeve of her vault suit and pushed the guilt down. She decided that she would deal with all of this once she had found her son. Then, she prepared herself to do it again. 

She darted between buildings and alleyways, lining up the strange people in the sights of her pistol and pulling the trigger. At some point, a bullet had hit her in the shoulder, but it did not even phase her. She kept going, her mind having already checked out from this situation. 

The only thing that brought her back down to realty to face the carnage she had created was a voice that called out to her from above, “Hey! Up here! Don’t shoot! We need some help!”

She looked up and realized that she was now in front of the Museum of Freedom. She decided to go in, and, of course, there were more people that were hostile to her. As she roamed the museum looking for the man who had called down to her, she found herself annoyed by the semi-talking exhibits that told her the story of her country. They spouted comfortable half-truths that she knew were false. When she came across the mural thanking all of the soldiers overseas fighting for them, she nearly screamed. The man in power armor on that mural vaguely reminded her of Nate, and even though she was annoyed, she still felt her eyes prickling with tears. She stood there for a moment, mourning the life she should have had, but then gathered herself back up, and continued on.  


She had gotten so annoyed by the exhibits that she went to the basement and pulled the fusion core out of the generator just so that they would all shut up.  


It worked, thankfully. As the museum became silent, she heard the hostile people trying to decide what to do next. Then after a minute or so, they decided that it would be easier to snipe the other people as they left the museum. She wondered what the other people had done to them briefly, but then decided that she did not really care. 

Eventually, she found a locked door on the top floor and without thinking, she tried to bust it down. The first time was a failure and only succeeded in making pain flare up in her injured shoulder. Right as she was supposed to hit the door the second time, it opened and she tumbled through it. 

After she regained some sense of balance, she turned to whoever had opened the door, prepared to fight. Then she saw the weary people around her with dirty torn clothes and tired eyes. She was reminded of the poor people of the Commonwealth before the war. She forced herself to untense some of her muscles in an effort to not startle these people.

“Impeccable timing.” The man sounded somewhat relieved, “I am Preston Garvey, Commonwealth Minuteman.”

She was a little rusty on her history, but she was pretty sure that the Minutemen were a revolutionary war thing. Her mind was trying its best to reason it out, but it ended up tying itself into knots.

“Did you say Minuteman?” She asked, a bit slack-jawed. 

“Yes, that’s what he said, you half-wit.” One of the women sharply remarked. 

Nora turned herself around to face whoever had said that. She wanted to say something sharp enough to cut that woman down, but looking at these people, she could bring herself to cut them even lower. These people had been through hell and only had the clothes on their backs to show for it. 

“Marcy, she helped us.” Preston said calmly.

“We are still trapped here, aren’t we?” Marcy shot back in her Bostonian accent. 

Nora almost laughed at the absurdity of it all. She had been catapulted over two hundred years in the future, and that Boston accent lived on. 

“We have a plan.” Preston said. 

Nora wondered where this man had learned to be so patient. Preston seemed like someone who had spent most of his life brokering peace between others despite having never experienced peace himself. Nora could admire that, but she could not relate to it. 

“Then how about we get to it before the raiders shred us to pieces?” Marcy nearly yelled. 

“Marcy, calm down. Preston is trying his best.” A haggard man with tearstains on his cheeks said softly. 

Marcy simply scoffed. 

“So, who are you?” Preston said as she turned around. 

She did not know how she wanted to respond yet. In truth, she hadn’t prepared herself for that question over the last few days. In fact, it almost seemed trivial in light of everything else. Who was she? In the old world, that was a question that was easy enough to answer: she was Nora, wife of war hero Nathan Davis, mother of Shaun, and daughter of Margaret and Daniel O’Malley. Here, it was a bit more difficult. Nate was gone, and even if he wasn’t, his actions in the war meant nothing. He had died in a glorified refrigerator basically alone. Her son was missing. Her parents were definitely very dead. 

“I’m Nora.” She left it at that.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Preston said, smiling a bit, “Anyway, on to our plan.”

A man in overalls stood up from a desk and turned to them, “ So, here’s the plan . . .” He began conspiratorially. 

“Oh, wait, you don’t know who I am yet, do you?” His southern twang reminded her of her father’s voice and she felt a strong pull on her heartstrings. “I’m Struges. 

Anyway, so on the roof of this place, a vertibird crashed and in it, was a suit of power armor. If we can get our hands on a fusion core, you can use it to shoot us a path out of here. I think there might be a fusion-“

“I have a fusion core right here.” Nora said as she dug through her pack.

“Oh, well, I guess we will be on our way sooner than we thought.”

Then a realization dawned on Nora, “Wait a second, why do I have to get us out of here?”

Preston cut in, “I am the last Minuteman. We can’t rebuild without me and these people are just settlers.”

“As much as I would like to help, I’m kinda looking for my son.”

“Tell you what, you help us get out of here and we will do everything we can to help you.”

Nora thought on it for a moment. No cost was too high to pay for her son. After all, what were a few more bodies to a murderer? She shook that thought away. She would do it, only because it was better than having no help at all in this wasteland. 

“Fine, I’ll do it.”

She went to go get the power armor, but as she was about to leave the room, an old lady grabbed and fixed her milky eyes on her.  
“You are out of place, a woman out of time. Be careful out there, something big stirs.” 

Nora pulled her arm out of the old lady’s grip, “What do you mean?”

“I can’t tell, just that there is something big out there.”

Nora’s stomach dropped a bit. She had to do this. She had to find Shaun. So she did her best to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach and the pain in her shoulder, and pressed on.


	5. Chapter 5

She had managed to get herself into the power armor. She felt like she was little more than a glorified tank in it. She had also somehow ripped a minigun from the vertibird. She was near invulnerable and it all felt like some twisted gory game. Just as she finished clearing out the raiders, something big and scaly jumped on her. She struggled to get free but once she had, she gunned it down without mercy. It was either it or her, and she did not want to experience those claws firsthand.  


Everything that happened after felt hazy, like she was just having a very bloody nightmare. The only thing that kept her somewhat tethered to reality was the pain radiating in her shoulder. Somehow, she was bringing up the rear of the small group of settlers as they were led to a place called Sanctuary. Preston walked beside her babbling on about how thankful he was that she had helped. She didn’t bother bringing up that they had basically twisted her arm into helping them. When they got to the bronze Minuteman statue, Preston stopped the group and said a few words about the Minutemen of old. She was not paying attention. Then, they approached her ruined slice of suburbia.

Codsworth greeted them at the bridge cheerfully as the group made their way into Sanctuary Hills. Nora made it to the front of her old house before she called over to Preston and Struges to get her out of the heavy power armor. 

“Thanks.” Nora said flatly.

“Yeah, no problem.” Struges said before he was called over by the other settlers to help with something. 

She turned around and saw Preston waiting for her.

“So, listen, I didn’t hassl- holy hell, are you ok?” His eyes dropped to the dark red stain that was beginning to form on her jumpsuit. 

Nora ignored him and yelled, “Codsworth! Do we have anymore stimpacks?” 

Codsworth whirled over to them, “No ma’am I don’t think we- my word! Are you ok?” 

Nora almost let out a string of curse words that had been building up over the course of the last few days. Right before they came out, she decided that her father did not deserve to roll over in his grave.

“I’ll make it work.” She gritted out.

Preston went to go get Struges as Nora sat in front of her decaying house. Nora unzipped her jumpsuit and went to pull the cloth off of her shoulder, only to realize that if she did that, she would be exposing herself in front of the neighborhood. Though to be fair, the neighborhood only consisted of five people now. 

Still, she did not want to expose herself to strangers. So she stopped herself. Struges came over with Preston.

“I am no doctor, but we are gonna have to look at so we can clean it good.” Struges said gently. 

Nora said nothing.

“We can go in that building there so no one else sees anything you don’t want them to.” Struges added.

No, she could not go in there. She was not ready to face that. 

“Anywhere else. Just anywhere but there.” Nora nearly begged.

Preston knit his eyebrows together, “What’s wron- ok, we can go somewhere else.”

She walked with Preston and Struges into the house she had slept in after leaving the vault. Preston nodded at them before he walked out. She felt a bundle of nerves in her belly but the gun at her hip helped to steady her a bit. If he tried anything, he would have to be dragged out of here. 

“Like I said, I am no doctor, but I do know that we gotta clean it to prevent infection.” 

She nodded.

“This might hurt bad.” He fished out a bar of soap from his pack and a can of water, “This is clean water, by the way, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

She pulled her arm out the vault suit. If she was dead, she would not be able to find Shaun, so she forced herself to remain calm as Struges cleaned it. It hurt so bad that she wanted to scream, but she bit her tongue and pressed her nails into her hand instead. At some point, Preston came in, careful not to look at her, and dropped off some bandages. Struges bandaged her up pretty good.

“Now, you are going to want to find someone who knows what they are doing to check it, but until then just change the bandages every few days and well, try not to get shot again.” He said as he finished.

She smiled a little at that last part, “I’ll do my best.” She began to pull the bloody suit back on. 

Struges seemed like someone she could have easily been friends with in the old world. 

She didn’t know how long it took to clean and bandage her shoulder, but it was growing dark now. Struges got up to go back outside with the others. She thought about getting up, but her body was so sore that she almost couldn’t make herself move. A while passed before Preston came back in. 

“We found some cleaner clothes for you.” He said, clearly beating around the bush about something.

He handed her a small bundle of cloth and some black boots, “If they don’t fit, we will see what we can do.” 

“Thank you.” She meant it. 

“When you’re ready, you can come join us and eat. I think Mama Murphy wants to talk to you. I would also like to speak with you if you have the time.”

“Alright.” 

She was almost floored by the kindness of these strangers. While she had saved them, that did not mean they owed her kindness. They could have killed her or left her for dead. Once she found Shaun, she would join up with this small band again. She figured it was much safer in a group than it would be on their own.  


She dressed in the clothes they had found for her. She tried not to think which neighbor they had belonged to, but she still did. The bundle consisted of some jeans, an old flannel shirt that looked like it might be blue and white, but the light was fading so she couldn’t really tell, a pair of thick socks, and some black combat style boots. It was all slightly too big for her, so she dug in her pack until she found the leather belt she had pulled from the dress and put that on. In her old life, she had never worn something so practical. Even her mother had never worn something this practical while helping her father cultivate the small rooftop garden he had created. It felt very strange, but it also felt somewhat freeing. 

After she got dressed, she shoved the vault suit down into her pack. She went outside and saw everyone else gathered around a small fire while something roasted over it. Struges waved her over and she sat next to the old woman with milky eyes. Everyone seemed lighter, not joyful by any means, but like a weight had been lifted from their shoulders. Marcy even laughed a bit. It felt, strangely, like a family. This is what her and Nate should have had together, but it was ripped from them. She felt that pang growing bigger in her stomach; it was only a matter of time before that pang consumed her. 

They cut the meat and shared it with her. She decided not to ask what it was. It tasted ok. Nate would have said that it tasted like chicken, but Nate had not grown up eating good chicken like she had. 

The old woman, who she assumed was Mama Murphy, turned to her and pointed a bony finger at her, “You are tied to this place, kid. I can feel it.”

“What?” Nora asked.

“She says she can see things, but really, she’s just trying to get people to give her chems.” Marcy said pointedly.

“I don’t know, she did lead us here.” Sturges responded.

“It’s called the Sight.” Nora could hear Mama Murphy roll her eyes as she said that, “And, it is very real.”

Nora did not know what to believe. She had heard of stranger things being true, and Mama Murphy had warned her about that giant lizard thing. However, it was  
possible that the old woman was just a good guesser. 

“Anyway,” She turned back to Nora, “you are looking for someone right?”

Nora felt her eyes get a little wider, “Yes, I’m looking for my son Shaun, have you seen him?”

“I haven’t seen him,” Nora’s heart felt heavy, “but, I can tell that he is alive somewhere. Good news is, I don’t even need the Sight to tell you where to start looking.”

“Where?”

“Diamond City. The great green jewel of the Commonwealth.” 

Nora sat there digesting that information while everyone began to file off to bed until only her and Preston were left.

“Look, I didn’t want to hassle you too much earlier about who you were, but I do need to have an idea of who I’m dealing with.” He said to her from across the dwindling fire.

She let out a small sigh, “I told you. I’m Nora.”

“Seriously, I need to know.” 

Nora almost broke at that. She flinched a little as she tried to press those memories back down. She did not have time to think about the past; she had to keep putting one foot in front of the other until she found her baby, then – and only then- could she dig up those memories. 

Preston’s face soften a bit at seeing her flinch, “Ok , let’s start a bit easier. I know you are vault dweller. What vault?”

She could barely answer that, “111.”

“Why did you not want to enter that house earlier?”

She didn’t answer.

“I need to know if I need to protect these people from something.” He said, softer this time.

“I used to live here. That was my house.” She said as her eyes began to water. 

“This place hasn’t been inhabited in awhile. What’s the real reason?”

“That is the real answer. I knew everyone on this street.”

His eyes widened, “That would make you over two hundred years old.” 

“I saw the bombs drop as I was lowered into the vault and then…” She couldn’t finish that sentence.

“Look, all that matters is that my son is missing, and I need to find him.” She could still hear that gunshot in her head.

They sat there in silence for a few minutes and then Preston went off to bed. She stood in front of her home for a few minutes, and then she forced herself to go inside it. 

That was a mistake. She didn’t even make it past the living room before she started to sob. Her life was all around her, only it wasn’t her life anymore. 

“Codsworth?”

“Yes, ma’am?” The robot said from the back of the house.

“Can you bring me my jewelry box?”

“Of course ma’am.”

He brought it out from the master bedroom, “Thank you, Codsworth.”

Despite the thick layer of dirt that covered the box, it seemed mostly intact. She sat on her floor in the dark just looking at the ornate lid her father had carved. It had  
been a graduation present. She opened it and noticed that none of her jewelry had gone missing in the past two hundred years. It was a small miracle. She dug through it until she found a small silver chain and pendant. The pendant was a simple circle of inlaid mother of pearl and a tiny triquetra in the middle. It had been a wedding present from her parents so that she would always have something of value, just in case something went bad. She took off her wedding ring and engagement ring to put on the chain. Then she put Nate’s ring on the chain. She knew that she was never going to part with anything in this box, but she still stuck it in her pack. She put the chain around her neck and buttoned the top button of her flannel over it. 

“Codsworth?”

“Yes ma’am?”

“Make sure no one comes in here until I get back.” 

“Of course, ma’am.”

“Thank you.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I can't believe I have almost 50 views and almost 10 kudos!! Thank you all so much!!  
> Anyway, the chapters from here on out are going to be slightly longer. I am going to aim to publish around 3,000 words each week mainly just to help build some stamina when it comes to writing. I am also switching to a weekly update schedule and will update the story every Friday starting next week.


	6. Chapter 6

She left the next morning, bleary-eyed and exhausted. She had been plagued by nightmares when she did get to sleep and when she wasn’t asleep, she was plagued by thoughts of everything she had lost. She waved at Codsworth as she left and nodded a farewell to Preston.

“Are you going to come back?” Preston asked her at the bridge.  
“I hope so.” 

“I hope when you do, you won’t be alone.” He paused, “Make sure you take care of that shoulder.”

“I will. Thank you for everything by the way.”

“Anytime.”

She set off, not exactly sure where she was going. She passed through Concord and saw the carnage she had wrought. She paused and made herself take it all in for a moment. She had done this. She had ripped these people from the world. This is what she had become in a week. Then, she made herself move on. She figured out how to work the radio on her pip-boy and listened to it while she walked. The wide openness of the road made her feel safe. At some point, she saw a beautiful dog approach her. His coat was shiny and he seemed friendly enough. Plus, she had always wanted a German Shepard and this one had chosen her. So when she stopped to rest at about noon, she offered him some water and a bit of jerky Struges had managed to sneak into her pack. She was grateful for the company. 

The dog was better company than any person would have been. He listened to her babble on about how different this world was from her old one, and when she was attacked by what she could only describe as zombies, he bit at their legs until she could get a good shot in.

Once it got dark, she stopped and was trying to figure out where to set up camp when she saw light in the distance. Light in this world only could mean one thing in this world: people. The question then became would these people shoot at her or would they help her? She considered going towards the light for a minute but then decided that it would be better to investigate in the daylight when, if she had to, would actually be able to see what she was doing. She set up her small and uncomfortable bedroll and laid down. Her new animal friend laid at her feet. 

She looked up at the sky while she struggled to process everything that happened to her. Her husband was gone, her son was missing, she had been shot, she had killed people, and, now, she had been attacked by zombies. This was certainly not the world she had imagined living in but this was the world she got.  
The stars twinkled above her. She had never seen stars as vibrant as the ones above her. The old world was too bright and loud to leave any room for them. They were beautiful. In another life, she would have never seen stars like these. Though to be fair, in another life, she would never had to see Nate murdered and Shaun taken, she would have never had to kill. Yet, in that life, she would have never been happy. She would have been bird trapped in a cage, looking out at what she could’ve been. 

She tried to sleep, she really did. Her exhausted body demanded it, but every time she closed her eyes she saw the faces of the men she had murdered and left in the street. When she did finally drift off to sleep, she felt the heat of nuclear annihilation wash over her body all over again, and then the cold of the cryopods. Needless to say, she did not sleep well. 

When she woke up, the sky was a light gray and her body was beyond sore. She stood up and tried to shake the soreness from her limbs. That did not work very well. She ran her fingers through her hair before she decided that she should try to eat something before they set out for a day. She cracked open another can of pork n’ beans and tried to ignore the taste. She ate about half before she gave the rest to her new dog.  
While her dog ate his half, she rolled up her bedroll and tied her thick hair back into a tight bun. She was sure that if she saw her reflection that her greasy hair bun would remind me of a distorted version of her mother. The older seamstress usually kept her hair in a neat bun, but she also always took great pain to take extremely good care of her hair. Nora did not have that luxury right now. 

Once her pup was done eating, she thought about just leaving the tin can there, but she still stuck it in her pack. Even if the world had ended, she was still not going to litter. 

They headed off, still sticking to road. Not too long after, they came to the ruins of a Drumlin Diner. 

“Trudy! We need those caps your son owes us!” A man yelled.

“You aren’t getting anything from us ever again!” A woman who Nora assumed was in the diner yelled back. 

“He owes us money, Trudy!”

Nora, against her better judgement, decided to approach the building and see if she could help. 

“What’s going on here?” Nora asked the man.

“Trudy’s son owes us some caps for chems and won’t pay up.” The man seemed to have an idea, “Hey, maybe you can help us. There’s some caps in it for you.”

“Caps?” Nora asked, perplexed. 

“Yeah, like Nuka Cola bottlecaps?” The man clearly thought she was stupid.

She still did not understand. Why would anyone want Nuka Cola bottlecaps? 

So she just nodded, “Right, caps.”

“You help us resolve this incident and I’ll make sure you get paid.” The man assured her.

Caps must be like a currency. It seemed so stupid to base an economy around bottlecaps, but maybe these people just really liked Nuka Cola bottlecaps.

“Alright, I’ll see what I can do.”

Nora went into the diner, and noticed a man rocking back and forth in the back, clearly suffering from chem withdrawals. An older woman stood behind the counter, her arms crossed. 

“Listen, it sounds like you owe th-“

“He got my son addicted to chems. I am not paying him a dime.” 

“Just pay the man.” Nora was almost pleading with this woman.

“I’ll give you a hundred caps to kill him.”

She was not going to kill someone just because she could, “ I’m sure we can work something better out.” Then, Nora had an idea, “ What if I can get him to agree to  
not sell your son chems anymore?” 

“You think you can?”

“I might be able to.”

“Long as I don’t have to pay them and they stop selling my boy chems, I don’t care what you do.” Trudy huffed. 

“I’ll see what I can do.” 

Nora went back outside to speak to the man. In the time it had taken her to talk with Trudy, the man had leaned against the wall of the diner and started to smoke what was likely an extremely stale cigarette. What a disgusting habit! She hated it even before she had been frozen. It stunk to high heaven and managed to stain everything with a sickly yellow. Still, she wished she had a habit from the time before that she could still use to comfort herself. 

“What if I convinced her to pay you, but it was on the condition that you stop selling her son chems?” Nora asked, knowing that this situation was likely not going to be solved by a compromise.

The man took a long drag on his cigarette, “Yeah, that could work. Long as I get my caps, I’m happy.”

So she went back in and explained the deal to Trudy, got Trudy to agree, told the man, was paid around 100 caps, went back into the diner to buy some ammo from the disgruntled woman, and even traded some of the pre-war cash she had been lugging around for caps. Trudy was not terribly happy, but at least everyone was walking away alive. That was more than could be said for Nate. 

She felt the familiar pang of grief tug at her heartstrings as she thought of Nate. She pushed it down, there would be time for that later. 

She smiled at the man as she left the diner and he smiled back. It was not a friendly smile but it also was not the smile of someone who wanted to eat her alive. 

“Hey, do you know the way to Diamond City?” Nora asked. 

“Sure do. It’s in the ruins of Boston; I think there’s a sculpture in front of it, plus you can’t miss the big green wall.” 

“Thanks, I appreciate the help.” 

He waved her off and she began the long journey to Boston. 

As she walked along the road, following the road signs to Boston, she was still trying to figure out where exactly in Boston this place was. After all, Boston was huge  
before the war. There were too many sculptures in Boston to navigate by that alone, but he had mentioned a big green wall. She talked to her pup as she worked through her thoughts. 

Then, as she thought about making camp for the night, she realized the answer: Fenway Park. She had to go to Fenway Park. 

As she laid down for the night, she thought of the warm little dress shop that was only a few blocks away from Fenway. It was an odd place for a dress shop, but it did really well there. She smelled the fresh laundry as her mother pulled the garments she made from a dryer and began the work to iron them. She saw her mother behind the old sewing machine, her glasses on the ridge of her nose and hair up in a tight bun while the radio tried to speak over the song of the machine. Nora saw her father, tall and thin as a beanpole, helping her mother set up window displays and fixing the machine when it decided to act up. It was not fair that they were gone and Nora was still here, two hundred years in the future. 

It was hard not to cry and for a moment, she gave in. She let herself have this one moment because she knew that the journey was far from over and that there was still much to do. 

When she woke up the next morning, she was still sore and cold. Ignoring that, she put her pack over her shoulder and set out with her dog. 

She had managed to get lost in the ruins of Boston. There was so much gunfire and blood that she could barely think outside of putting one foot in front of the other and surviving. She had ran out of food a few days ago and was too scared to go rooting around in abandoned buildings for food lest she run into yet another of those huge green monsters that seemed to only exist to horrify her. If it wasn’t them, then it was something else: zombies, raiders, the occasional rapid dog. She was almost out of ammo and her shoulder hurt worse than when she had been shot. 

She was hungry and she was surprised that the dog had yet to abandon her in search of greener pastures. She was caked in dirt and grime, having only taken a shower over two hundred years ago. Her hair was greasy and she refused to touch it because it felt so disgusting. Hungry, cold, tired, and disoriented, she did her best to navigate to Fenway but she couldn’t. 

As night fell, it had began to rain. It was a bitter cold rain but she was thankful that it at least would take a little dirt off her skin. She knew that if she did not make it Diamond City tonight, she would not be able to make herself go on anymore. So, even as it became hard to see in the dark, she kept stumbling through the ruins of Boston. 

Then, just as she was about to give up, she saw what she could only describe as an angelic glow of blue and purple neon lights. She forced herself to step closer to them and then she realized that they made an arrow. She did not know if it was a trap or not, but she didn’t care. She went the way the arrow pointed and turned a corner. In front of her, she saw a large gate with a neon sign above it reading Goodneighbor. 

Without a second thought, she opened the gate and walked inside where she was greeted by the first civilization she had seen since the diner. Men with guns and slacks stood around the storefronts that were preparing to close for the night, the town square was lit up with small twinkling lights. It almost seemed like it was out of some misinterpreted fairy tale book.

As she took it all in, a man dressed in all leather approached her. 

“Hold up there. First time in Goodneighbor? Can’t be walking around without some protection.” The man greeted her.

She snapped back to reality, “What?” 

“You can’t walk around Goodneigbor without insurance or else big bloody accidents can happen.” The man said menacingly.

She was about to respond when someone else cut in from the alley behind him, “Now, Finn, you can’t go around threatening newcomers. Bad for business.” They said playfully.

As the other man came into the light, Nora forced herself not let out a noise of terror. He appeared badly burned all over, his eyes were as black as the night sky above them, and, for whatever reason, he was wearing a British revolutionary war uniform. Once she forced the terror down into her brimming pocket of things that she was simply not going to deal with, she decided that she was quite tired of all the people deciding that since the world had ended, it was now time to play Revolutionary War. 

“What’d you care, Hancock?” She isn’t one of us.” 

Nora put her hand on her gun as her dog gathered around her feet. 

“No love for your mayor, Finn? I said let’em go.” Hancock demanded, the playful veneer wearing off. 

“You ain’t always going to be the mayor, Hancock. Sooner or later, someone else wil-“ Finn did not get to finish his sentence as Hancock stabbed him in the gut with his switchblade. 

Nora watched in horror as Finn’s body fell to the ground, twitching as he died. Maybe Hancock was a monster after all, but she still managed to bite back her screams. 

“Mayor Hancock, nice to meet you. Welcome to Goodneighbor.”

“You… you just killed him.” Nora said, her eyes wide and her voice shaking with disbelief. 

“What can I say? Sometimes, politics get messy.” He smiled at her, but she felt very woozy. “Hey, are you ok?” He asked somewhere far away. 

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” The pain in her shoulder had finally reached a boiling point as the last week and a half caught up with her. Her pain was only interrupted by the sharp pang of hunger. The world around her spun. Maybe it was the pain from her shoulder, maybe it was hunger, maybe it was the shock of watching a cold blooded murder, or maybe it was a combination of everything. 

She remembered what Preston had said when she left Sanctuary Hills, “Actually,” She was trying to steady herself a little, “ is there a doctor nearby?” 

“Yeah, basement of the Memory Den. Need someone to walk you there?” 

She wanted to say no and walk away from the murderer in front of her, but it was not like her hands were not coated in blood that she somehow knew would never completely come off. Plus, she knew she would be completely unable to understand the most basic directions while her world was wobbling around her. 

“Yeah, actually, I would appreciate that.”

He escorted her there, and the entire time talked about how awful a bad trip like she was having was. She had not taken any chems, but the man didn’t believe her. He walked her past weird enclosed seats with a screen in them, and down into a basement that had been set up to resemble a doctor’s office but everything seem to have a thin layer of dirt or rust on it. Nora vaguely feared that maybe she had been tricked, but then decided that it did not really matter.

“Dr. Amari, our new arrival needs some help.” He called across the small room to a woman hunched over a microscope. 

Dr. Amari turned to them, “What seems to be the problem?”

“I think she took some bad chems or something.”

“I didn’t take anything.” Nora managed to cut in. 

“Well, let’s take a look then. Just sit on the bed and I’ll get you patched up.” Dr. Amari said.

Nora slowly made her way to the bed, even though her world was spinning. She sat down and noticed Hancock leaning against the wall and trying to light a cigarette. It seems that some things never really change. 

“So what’s the issue?” The kind doctor stood in front of the bed.

“I’m really dizzy, everything is spinning.” 

“Have you been eating well? Drinking plenty of water?” The doctor inquired.

“No, not really. I have been traveling.” Nora offered.

Dr. Amari handed her some water and a small bit of what appeared to be some sort of lizard. Nora did not overthink of it as she choked both down. 

“Where to?” Hancock asked. 

“Mayor, there is no need to be here.” Dr. Amari said.

“Don’t worry about me, doc. Just gonna make sure gets to a bed safely after this.” There was an undercurrent to his words. Nora knew he was lying and that he was  
really trying to figure out why she was here. Nora had already decided not to give him that yet.

“Anyway, anything else wrong?”

Nora wanted to tell her that everything was wrong. That this was not the world she had wanted to wake up to nor was it the world she had expected to wake up in. That her husband had been shot dead and her son taken. Nora wanted to scream and cry about everything that had been taken from her, but instead, she swallowed it. 

“I got shot in a shoulder awhile ago. It hurts pretty bad.” Nora carefully pulled the fabric away from her shoulder to reveal the grimy bandages.

She watched the doctor grimace as she unwrapped the bandages to reveal the bullet hole, “This is infected. If you hadn’t come, it would have spread.” 

Nora tried her best not to wince as the doctor did her best to clean it. She failed, but at least she could say she tried. 

After it had been cleaned and re-bandaged, Nora finally found the courage to ask “How can I treat this?”

“You’ll need to stay in town for a few days so I can administer some antibiotics and make sure it’s cleaned correctly.”

“I’m sorry, did you say a few days?” 

“Yes.”

Nora almost screamed. She couldn’t do that. She needed to find her son. She couldn’t just stop for a few days to rest.

“I can’t do that.” 

“You have to. If you don’t, this infection could kill you.”

Nora wanted to let out the longest string of curse words the world had ever seen. She could feel them rising in her throat, and just as she was about to let them all  
out, she stopped herself. 

“Fine, whatever it takes.” Nora knew she would not be able to find her son if she was a corpse. 

“I’ll see you here tomorrow, right?” Dr. Amari asked as she narrowed her eyes.

“Yes, I will come in tomorrow.” Nora confirmed. 

“Make sure you eat tonight. Have a good one.” 

“You too.” Nora walked past Hancock as she went up the stairs and back outside. 

Hancock was surprisingly speedy and caught up to her easily, “Sounds like you’ll be here for a few days.”

“Yep.” She resisted popping the p in frustration. 

“I’ll walk to the hotel.” 

“Thanks.”

They walked in mostly silence to the hotel, her dog between them the entire time. She went into what at one point must have been a grand place, but now was glorified rubble. She got a room for 5 caps, and was surprised to see clean linens on the bed. She felt too dirty to even attempt to sleep on those sheets and instead slept on her bedroll. As she tried to drift off to sleep, she made a list of things to buy: more ammo, a new set of clothes, lots of soap. . . 

The next morning she went ahead and paid for two more nights and left her dog to guard most of her pack. She went into what seemed to be a small general goods store and was greeted by yet another burn victim. At least she had not seen this woman kill someone in front of her. 

“What can I get ya?” The woman seemed kind. 

“Got any soap?” 

“Yup, on the shelf behind you.”

“You mind if I browse?”

“Not as long as you pay for it.”

Nora smiled a little at that line, “No problem.”

Nora bought a few things of purified water, some soap, a hairbrush, and some ancient toothpaste. It was better than nothing. As she was about to pay, a pile of clothes caught her eye and she rifled through them. She found a silvery sequin dress that she wanted desperately, a set of slacks and undershirt, a red flannel shirt, and another pair of jeans. The dress was not practical in the slightest, but she decided that deserved some small pretty thing. She paid for it all, and then went back to the hotel. She even sprung for a hot shower. 

She bathed and dressed in her new flannel and jeans. Her next mission was to clean her old set and do whatever repairs they might need. Then she was going to walk to the doctor, after which she was going to find some food. It was nice and almost too normal to have an agenda for the day. Just as she was preparing to wash her clothes, a loud knock sounded at the door. She groaned as she got up to open it. 

A red-haired woman who was armored to the teeth greeted her, “Hancock would like to see you. Now.”

Nora decided that this was not a woman to debate with and followed her wordlessly to the Old State House, went up some stairs, and was escorted to Hancock’s room. 

“How you doing today? Come over and sit awhile.” She watched as he popped a mentat.

“Um, I actually, uh, have plans.” 

“Well, surely they can wait a bit. After all, you are stuck here for a few days.” 

He got her there, and he had helped her, so she sat on the couch across from him and heard the door close. She felt her heart drop. Maybe she should have refused to come. . 

Hancock reclined a bit on his couch, “Want one?” He offered her a mentat.

“No, thank you.”

“Anyway, I don’t usually interrogate everyone who comes into my town, but you are a special case.” 

“You brought me here to ask me questions?”

“Yeah, I don’t get a lot of vault dwellers that come through here.”

“I’m not a vault dweller.”

“Cut the shit. Everyone has been eyeing that sweet sweet pip-boy on your wrist. Listen, I don’t really care about your life story, so just tell me who I am dealing with,  
and we will all be good.”

She exhaled, “It’s all a really long story. I’m looking for my son. That is all that matters.”

She must have convinced him that she was being at least a little truthful because he seemed sympathetic.

“That tells me what you are up to, but who are you?”

That was a very good question. One that Nora was completely unprepared for. Who was she? In the old, world that was easy, but at the end of world, it became harder.For her entire life, she had always defined herself in relation to other people: she was Nora, wife Nathan Davis, mother of Shaun Davis, and daughter of Margaret and Daniel O’Malley. She could no longer do that. No one would care that her husband had been war hero two hundred years ago of that her parents ran a very successful dress shop. She had to learn to define herself on her own terms, but how was she supposed to do that? 

“Call me O’Malley.”


	7. Chapter 7

“Cigarette?” He offered.

She was amazed at his ability to just drop a subject. Maybe he no longer cared. Or maybe he already decided that he was going to kill her. She needed to get out of here.

Her nose nearly scrunched at that, “No thanks.”

“Your loss.” He mumbled as he lit his cigarette.

Stale cigarette smoke filled the room as the morning light tried to filter through it. Vaguely, she was reminded of the men’s lounges her father had hated: cigarette smoke thick in the air, while some rich guys sipped on whiskey, all while being surrounded by comfortable couches and chaises. Her father would refer to them as lazy boys who had been born into luxury; her father and mother had worked hard for their wealth and her father could not stand the soft hands of the rich boys that had started to become interested in her during her high school years. 

“Anyway, so if you don’t need anything else. . .” She was going to try to slip out.

“No, no, stay.” He took a drag on his cigarette, “I was actually getting ready to eat and break out some whiskey.” He was trying his best to be welcoming.

It wasn’t even noon yet and he was ready to start drinking? She tried not to judge him too harshly. After all, the state of the world had her considering turning to something for solace.

“I, uh, have things to do.” 

“Surely, you have some time to spare for your new pal Hancock?” He forced himself to ooze charisma.

“Seriously, I have things I need to get done today.” 

“It’s because I’m a ghoul isn’t it?” He was only half-joking.

“A what?’

“A ghoul.”

She was confused. God, the world really had changed hadn’t it?

“It’s why I look the way I do. Makes you live a real long time too. There’s some ghouls from before the war. Pretty crazy shit.” He watched her perk up a little bit. “Something about the radiation.” 

She was too distracted by the pre-war ghoul part to hear the last of what he said.

“You’re from before the war?” She felt herself light up.

“No, I’m not that old. Got it from an experimental drug. Couldn’t go back to Diamond City, but it sucks anyway. The high was so worth it.” 

“Oh.” She was crestfallen.

“Anyway, back to lunch plans. You in?”

“I have things I need to do today, plus I promised Dr. Amari I would be in today. . .”

“You can do all of that after we get some food. Plus didn’t she say that you needed to eat for the next couple days at least?” 

He had a point. She hated that he had point. Instead of being sensible, she decided that the best course of action was to put her foot down.

“I said no. Back off.” She said it in the exact tone her father would use when those boys came knocking on their door despite her telling them that she was simply not interested. 

“Ok, sorry. Didn’t mean to offend ya. Figured you just needed some company.”

She needed some sort of human companionship, but she doubted that a human would just let her ramble on the way her dog had.

“Have a good one.” She said as she slipped out the door. 

The Old State House had seen better days. It was a small miracle it was still standing at all, though she could say that about most buildings. When she went outside, the cool autumn air kissed her face and for a moment, she was standing behind her kitchen counter staring at that law degree while Nate prattled on about something one of the neighbors had said. She nearly cried as she went back to the hotel to let the dog out to run. 

She made it to her room, told her dog to go run for a little bit, and began to think about what she needed. A bag that could go on her belt to hold caps would be nice. She decided that was going to be her project for the day. When the dog came back, she walked Dr. Amari’s again and got her shoulder checked and washed again. Laundry was something else she needed to. In all honesty, any time her mind had time to wonder, she made herself think about something else that needed to be done. It was the only mercy she could grant herself. 

Even as she was working on things that needed to be done, she still that she was running out of time. Her son needed her and here she was, having to stay in Goodneighbor for a few days because she was unable to handle a simple shoulder wound. Nate would have been able to carry on. Nate would have been able to find Diamond City without getting lost. Nate would’ve already found Shaun. If Nate had been the one to live, Shaun would already be safe. She was a failure. She had always been a failure. She had failed as a wife, she had failed as a mother, and she likely would have failed as a lawyer. She wasn’t cut out for the old world and she sure as hell was not cut out for this one.

She hadn’t realized that she had nearly broke the rusted needled in half. She took a breath and loosened her grip. Then she decided that some fresh air and sunlight would be good for her, so she gathered up the few materials she needed and went to go set on a bench outside. The town was alive with activity. A ton of people were coming in through the gates. It made her a little nervous, but she kept her head down and focused on her stitching. She decided to put a little embroidery on the sack. She didn’t know why, but it felt right. Some little flowers to brighten up the black material. While that did not make her feel better, it at least helped her feel at ease. A couple more days and then she could find Diamond City and her son. 

Her hands could make the small flowers almost by muscle memory alone, so even as the light grew dim and the streetlights came on, she sat there stitching alone. Even as the air began to have a cool sharp edge to it, she kept stitching. When she finished, it was not an item of great beauty; it was simple and practical, but it brought her a touch of joy. Tomorrow, she would scrub the blood and grime off of her other clothes and accept the world around her, but today was hers.   
As she stitched, she thought of some of the stuff Shaun would need. Blankets to ward off the cold, books to learn from, and toys to play with. She knew it was not that simple, but it was nice to think it was for a moment. Then, she felt her stomach growling, and decided to go to the Third Rail for a halfway decent dinner.  
She went down into the old subway station turned bar, and it was absolutely packed. A woman sung a beautiful song from the stage, all the while the patrons spoke loudly. It felt like any other restaurant on a Friday night. She went up to the bar to order some food and a drink, and was greeted by a British handy bot.

“Oi, what do you want?” The robot said in a gruff cockney accent.

“What do you have?”

“A bit everythin’ worth drinkin’ and some food to go wit’ it.”

“You got bourbon?”

“Course I got bourbon. Want anything else?” 

“Can I get a steak?” She said it mostly as a joke.

“Alright, so a bourbon and a radstag steak coming up.”

She paid the robot and then ate her food. It was all surprisingly good.

“Anyway, now that I got you drinkin’, I have a job for you.” 

She was light on caps.

“What is?’

“You need to clear some vermin out of a couple warehouses around town for me.” 

How hard could pest control be?

“No problem.” 

She sipped on her bourbon while she watched a card game nearby. Eventually, Hancock came to join the card game, and everyone at the table cheered for him. Despite his lack of morals, it was easy to see that he was loved. She watched a few hands, mostly just to feel like she was part of a fully functioning society again, when Hancock decided that it was time to call out to her.

“O’Malley! Wanna play a hand?’

“Alright!” Tonight was her one night to have fun. 

She sat next to a man a few years younger than her. His jacket was dusty and torn in places, but she still thought that he looked like some sort of soldier. In between hands, they would talk a bit. They didn’t talk about anything terribly important, but she did learn that the soft spoken man called himself MacCready. She learned a lot about the other people at the table as well. Daisy had been born before the war, Hancock had some sort of issue with a mayor of another town, and Fahrenheit was not a woman that could be read what so ever. She laughed for the first time since she had left the vault. 

Deep down, she knew that this moment of joy would not last, so she savored it and took it all in. She laughed at all the stupid jokes, had a couple of drinks, and seemed to have made a couple friends. By the end of the night, she was a little tipsy. MacCready had actually ended up walking her to hotel. She felt a little bad that he had ended his evening a little early for her, but he assured her that he was getting ready to leave anyway. She went upstairs and got ready for bed.  
There was something sad about MacCready, but she could not figure out what it was. Maybe it was the way he carried himself, or his seemingly soft nature, but there was a strange undercurrent of sadness to him. She wanted to ask him about it, but she understood the pain that could bring all too well. Everyone was entitled to their own personal tragedies without having to explain it to the world.

She laid in bed and thought about Hancock. She had decided that he was complicated. He had murdered a member of the town yesterday for basically no reason, and yet, his people seemed to love him. He had been kind to her for no reason, he had nothing to gain from her. Even when he had tried to question her, he had let up after she mentioned her son and gave him a name. She decided to make it philosophical. Maybe Hancock was representative of the morality of this new world. . .

Drunk philosophy is not the most sound philosophy, but it did help her fall asleep. Sleep came to her easier when she was drunk. She did not have a single nightmare.   
She woke up the next morning, more well rested than she had ever been, and decided to take care of the warehouses’ pests.

It turned out that the warehouse pests were ghouls. She tried not to cringe each time she shot one, but she did what she had to. She tried to tell herself that this was all ok because she needed the caps and that their faces would not be haunting her dreams. She was, of course, wrong but when White Chapel Charlie handed her those 200 caps she felt a bit like a Rockefeller. She took them and bought a gently used sniper rifle from the odd Assaultron who ran the shop, and went to the doctor. 

The next couple days were easy: she hung around in the bar, sometimes playing cards, sometimes not and sleeping. Goodneighbor was beginning to feel like a second home. She even found herself wondering how different her life could have been in the old world if she had taken a page from O’Malley’s book. O’Malley was braver than Nora ever could be, even though Nora knew it was all a front. O’Malley was a fake, she was a fake. It was just easier to hide under a pretend name than admit that Nora had failed. 

When she was finally healed up, she decided it was time to set out into the wider world. As she reached the gates, Hancock stopped her.

“So, you are actually are leaving then?” He seemed a little down.

“Yeah, unfortunately, my card skills are too good for this town.” O’Malley joked.

“Well, hopefully when you come back, we can all kick your ass.” He smiled at her. 

She hoped she would not be coming back; while Goodneighbor was great, it was no place to raise a child.

“Yeah, hopefully.”

“Anyway, if you make your way to a place called Pickman’s Gallery, I’ll pay you for information.” 

“Just mark it on my map.”

He did mark it on her map, and then he added Diamond City too.

“Just so you don’t get lost and wind up half dead somewhere.”

“Thanks.”

An awkward silence settled between them for a moment until Hancock broke it.

“Seriously though, be careful out there. I don’t know how things were in the vault but there are fates worst than death in the Commonwealth.”

He reminded her a bit of her father and that nearly reduced her to tears, but O’Malley did not cry. O’Malley did not mourn the dead. O’Malley was strong, stronger than Nora could ever be. As she walked away with her dog, she could not help but think about her father. 

The day that Nate had received his draft letter, Nora had cried. She had called her parents from one of the payphones outside of her apartment and told them both the terrible news. Her father had never liked Nate, but when she told him that Nate had been drafted, he told her that he felt sorry for the boy, that there were fates worst than death. Maybe that’s why when Nate proposed that night at a too-fancy restaurant down the street, she said yes. Maybe that’s why when her father found out about her engagement, he said nothing. Maybe they both thought that Nate deserved some joy before shipping out. 

That’s not to say that she did not love Nate; she had loved him dearly, but love was rarely enough. They wanted two different things, but she still could not have shot him down that night, especially knowing what was to come to him. 

As she continued to walk away from Goodneighbor and follow her map, she could still her father’s voice telling her that there were fates worst than death and she could still Hancock’s warning in her ears.


	8. Chapter 8

Hancock would never admit it, but as the gate closed behind O’Malley he felt a bit of sadness. He knew that she would likely never return to Goodneighbor; she would either die in search of her son or she would find her son and Goodneighbor was not the best place to raise a child. Even if Diamond City was a city full of bigots, at least they had a school. He would miss her, even if she was odd, there were few women in the Commonwealth that could beat him at cards. She carried her sadness well for someone as young as her and that fascinated him. 

He took one last puff on his cigarette before he went back into the Old State House. He had things to do today and moping about a friendship he almost had was not on it. He had a town to run, after all. As he walked back into his room, Fahrenheit greeted him.

“Vault girl leave?” she asked. 

“Yeah.” 

He watched Fahrenheit adjust her weapon, “She was an odd one, but good at cards right?”

Fahrenheit never missed anything. Somehow, Fahrenheit knew something about everyone. Hancock was almost certain that if life had turned out a little different, Fahrenheit would have been a spymaster. Instead, she had become his second-in-command. 

“Extremely.” He said as he turned into his room.

He worked on a speech a bit more, had a couple mentats, prepared for a meeting concerning a trade caravan tomorrow. The town had since quieted down from the weekend. Whitechapel Charlie told him that the pest issue had been taken care of by O’Malley, which shocked Hancock a little. She had been so shaken by the incident with Finn that he had no idea that she could kill someone herself. It added to the mystery of her a little bit. He had eternity but he knew that he would never be able to figure her out, especially with such limited interaction. As he typed his speech, he wondered how MacCready was doing. They seemed to have developed something, and Hancock did not want to deal with a mercenary driven by sadness or rejection. He made a mental note to talk with him later. 

The day dragged on and as the sun began to set, he decided that it was time to pay MacCready a visit and get some dinner. The Third Rail was nearly deserted, save for a few people. He ordered his steak and then went into the small back room MacCready had set up camp in. 

“Y’know, we do have a hotel.” Hancock said as he looked at MacCready’s bedroll.

“I know. I prefer it though.” 

Hancock did not mind that he stayed here; it was easier to keep an eye on the mercenary here, anyway.

“How you doin’?” Hancock asked as he glanced around the room.

MacCready kept it pretty neat. It was likely something he had learned in his time with the Gunners.

“Same as always. You?” MacCready seemed confused.

“I’m doin’ just fine,” Hancock smiled a bit, “O’Malley left this morning.”

“I know.” 

“And you’re ok with that?”

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

“You two just seemed close.” 

“Hancock, we just have a lot in common. Nothing romantic. You know I’m not ready for that after Lucy, and she damn sure isn’t ready for that after her husband.” MacCready explained.

Hancock sat in one of the chairs, “Husband?”

O’Malley had not mentioned a husband. To be fair, it was not any of his business, he was just nosey. 

“Yeah. She didn’t say what happened to him, but whatever it was, it was bad. She almost cried when she mentioned it.” 

“Want a drink?” He had a few more questions for the mercenary.

“Depends. You buying the first round?” The mercenary smiled. 

“You know it brother.”

He ordered a few drinks from the robot and sat across from MacCready. 

“So, how did you get O’Malley to talk about herself?” Hancock was extremely interested in how MacCready had done it.

“She’s a talkative drunk.” 

The two talked for a bit more and enjoyed their liquor. A few hours later, Hancock stumbled home drunk and satisfied. He went to bed, still in his coat. The next morning, he woke up well-rested, despite being a bit hungover. The rest of the day was pretty routine. He spoke with the trade caravan and arranged a bi-monthly water delivery to help bolster the town’s supply, and had even taken inventory of everything for the week. Everything was pretty normal, until Fahrenheit burst into his room without knocking. 

“Vault girl is back.”

“What?” Hancock was a little shocked.

“Turns out Bobbi was trying to break into your storeroom and recruited her for help.” 

Hancock took a breath so that he would not yell at Fahrenheit. 

“Did they take anything?” 

“No, Bobbi lied and said that it was the Diamond City vault they were breaking into, and as soon as the vaultie discovered the truth, she turned on Bobbi.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah, really. Anyway, I have vault girl sitting outside waiting for you to talk to her. I’m surprised she had the balls to try and break into a storeroom at all if you want the truth.”

“Why?” 

“Last time I brought her to speak with you, she was terrified. I wonder what has made her so brave.”

“Go ahead and send her in.”

Fahrenheit walked out of the room and a second later O’Malley came in. 

“Hancock.”

“O’Malley.”

A moment of silence followed. She looked decidedly unrepentant, not that he could blame her. It sounded like the whole ordeal would have been pretty fun and impressive if it had worked out.

“Would you like something to drink?” He needed to cut some of the tension in the room, and if MacCready was right, it would get her talking a bit. 

“What you got?” 

Maybe she was not as smart as he had given her credit for. Or maybe she was just really good at playing this game. That thought unnerved him a little.  
“Whiskey, bourbon, beer, maybe some wine. . .” He listed off. 

“I’ll take some whiskey.” 

The tension was palpable.

“Want any chems with that?”  
“I’m good.” She said, still standing near the door.

“Have a seat, stay awhile. I think we have some things we need to discuss anyway.” He smiled at her while he poured the drinks.

He watched her walk over to one of the couches and sit down stiffly. It seemed like she was prepared to run at a moment’s notice. He sat on the couch across from her and put the drink glasses on the coffee table in front of him. 

“So, I’ve heard you been busy trying to get into some storerooms. “He said, calmly.

He saw a brief flash of fear in her eyes before she managed to control her expressions again. He would kill to be able to have that kind of self-control. No wonder she was so good at cards. 

“Look, I didn’t realize that it was your storeroom. I was told that it was Diamond City’s and I needed the caps. As soon as I knew it was yours, I walked away.” She said quickly.

“Relax, no harm no foul. You did the right thing in the end.” He tried reassuring her.

She raised an eyebrow at him and remained silent. He took a sip of his whiskey and noted that she had yet to do the same. 

“This classy tricornered hat of mine is getting pretty heavy. Am I turning into the man? Some sort of tyrant?” He said, mostly to himself.

“You’re trying to enforce a rule of law. It’s the only way a town can function.” O’Malley said.

He was surprised that she spoke up. 

“Rule of law? In the Commonwealth? You already take some chems sister?”

“I remember a time where there was a rule of law.” 

He laughed a bit, “I suppose it’s easy to live by rules in a vault.”

He saw her face fall a little bit, but then she regained composure. How did she do that so easily?

“Before that.” 

“You weren’t born in a vault?” He asked, suddenly perplexed. 

“No, I wasn’t.”

“It’s odd that a vault accepted you then.” He said.

“My family was on the list.”

“Wait a minute, are you saying that you are an original vault resident? From before the war?”

“Yeah.”

He laughed hard, “Don’t bullshit me like that, sister.”

She smiled, but he could tell it was fake. 

“I can’t believe that I am spending my time putting down the people that I would’ve been scheming with a few years ago.”

“Like I said, rule of law.”

“I need to take a walk again, get a grip on what really matters, y’know?”

“What really matters to you?”

“Living free.” He said, it was the easiest question he had ever been asked.

He watched her let out a slow breath and began to wonder if she had ever actually lived free. It was impossible to do in a vault. He thought for a minute.

“Y’know, even though you did the right thing, I can’t just let you walk away without doing anything.”

She tensed. 

“So, I’ll make you a deal, you let me travel with you, watch your back, for a few months and I’ll forget all about this.” He smiled, it was a pretty good deal. 

“I have a dog that keeps a pretty good watch on me.” She said.

He wanted to walk and he also wanted to know more about her. This was the perfect opportunity and quite frankly, he was not going to let her walk out of here without an agreement.

“I’m being pretty cool about the whole ‘breaking into my storeroom’ thing.” He reminded her.

He watched the ways her eyes moved as she evaluated the offer, likely weighing the pros and cons.

“Wait a minute, aren’t you the mayor? You can’t just walk out.” 

“Keeps me honest. I’ve walked out before. Goodneighbor will survive a few months without me, easily.” 

She exhaled, he thought maybe he had succeeded in shaking her a bit. 

“You able to leave in the morning?” 

“Sure am, sister.”

“Fine. But I can’t travel with both you and the dog.” 

“You can leave him here.”

“No, there are some settlers who I’m sure would enjoy his company. You’ll have to help carry supplies though.”

“Whatever you need.” 

She finally took a sip of that whiskey. 

Hancock wondered if maybe this wasn’t the best idea, but there were likely worst people to travel with than O’Malley out in the Commonwealth. He had found that trust was rare and hard-won, but he was hoping that maybe he could trust her to watch his back too. 

“Wanna play a game of cards?” 

O’Malley grinned at him and he was vaguely reminded of something feral and free, “Sure, any games going on at the Third Rail?”

“I bet we could start one up.”

That’s how they ended up at the Third Rail. Somehow, O’Malley got MacCready and Ham to join the game. He found himself watching her for any tells at all, but she was impossible to read. He truly had no idea how she did it. Years of practice maybe? He could not imagine having that kind of discipline. One day, he would have to ask her about it. MacCready was losing pretty bad, and Hancock was just proud to still be in the game. O’Malley was very cautious with her bets, but that was one of the few things he could tell you about her. 

Maybe he had made a mistake. He really only knew two things about her: she was fairly self-disciplined, and she was cautious most of time. Except when it came to heists, apparently. He smiled at that thought. O’Malley may have not been raised for a life of crime and heists but she sure could pull them off well enough. A few more years of practice, and she would truly be a menace.

MacCready folded first and then Hancock folded. He grumbled at that. He could not believe that Ham had a better chance of beating the woman than he did! Then, a little bit later, Ham folded too. Maybe Ham didn’t have a chance of beating her after all. Then came the big reveal. What cards did she have?

She laid down her cards for them to all see: a two of diamonds and a seven of clubs. It was on of the worst hands he had ever seen and she had successful fooled them all. 

“Are you kidding me?” MacCready sounded frustrated, “How did you do it?”

“What can I say other than I was taught to lie well?” She laughed.

“Yeah, well, where did you learn? I might have to take a class.” Ham chimed in. 

“Harvard, actually. I don’t think they are still around though.”

Hancock laughed, “What is it with you and bullshiting?” 

“Of course, you have to learn how to apply it first. The best way is to start small, like convincing other people that you are satisfied and then move on to a harder target like yourself.” She laughed, but it had a forced edge to it. 

He could understand that. How many years had he spent lying to himself that he was happy in Diamond City? How many years had he tried to convince himself that he was not a coward? O’Malley may have been lying about most of the other stuff, these words rang with a sad hollow truth to them. 

“Anyway, I have to leave early in the morning, so I’m going go ahead and turn in.” O’Malley said to them as she began to leave.

“Let me walk you there.” Hancock said.

“I can handle the walk to the Rexford from here.”

“Figured it’d be good practice to walk together.” He joked.

“Alright, fine.”

They walked together, he listened as she checked into a room for the night. Her dog it seemed had already found his way to the lobby. Smart animal. He had already decided that he would walk her to her room, mainly so that he could make sure she hadn’t snuck out without him. As they walked up the stairs to her room, he saw the yellow suit of the vault tec rep. That old ghoul was always sad and angry with his lot in life. So many had died from the bombs, and yet he complained about being turned into a ghoul. He refused to engage with anyone in Goodnighbor. Hancock didn’t even know his name.

Something about them must have caught his eye, because Hancock saw him turn around and look at them again. 

“My god!” The man exclaimed. 

O’Malley continued on. 

“Mrs. Davis? Is that you?” 

O’Malley slowed down for a second before she sped back up.

“Nora Davis! It is you, isn’t?” 

Who the hell was Nora Davis? Was the ghoul going a little crazy? Hancock shook it off as he figured that maybe O’Malley simply looked really similar to someone he knew a long time ago. At least he shook it off until he saw O’Malley turn around and look at the sad old ghoul. He thought that O’Malley might do something to him, but he was even more shocked when O’Malley responded. 

“Yes, it is Nora Davis.” 

Now the vault tec rep looked confused, “How did you get here?” 

“Long story. Maybe I’ll tell it to you sometime when my bones are done thawing out.” O’Malley said a bit viscously before she continued down the hall to her room, leaving before Hancock and the vault tec rep confused.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My birthday is this weekend and I did not want to have format it Friday, so here's an early update.

Nora was annoyed to put it lightly. She had been trying to play it cool, but she had not wanted to end up in Hancock’s office today, nor did she want him to travel with her. Then, to add insult to injury, that vault tec man had recognized her. Now, not only would Hancock be traveling with her, but he would think her to be even more dishonest than he already did. She plopped onto the bed and let out a long sigh. This was all because she had been stupid. Why had she even considered that stupid heist would work? She knew why she had done it: she would need to have to have something to support her and Shaun on until she found a steady income. 

She heard a knock on the door and shot it an annoyed look before she got up to open it. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw her dog find a comfy spot to sleep. At least one of them got to be content. She pulled open the door only to be greeted by Hancock. Great.

“What?” It came out hard.

“O’Malley—” He began.

She cut him off, “You don’t have the right to know everything about me,” Her voice cracked a little on the next part, “and you aren’t entitled to knowing what I have gone through and what I have had to do.”

“O’Malley, I don’t care—Wait a second, what have you had to do?” 

That question was almost enough to cleave her in half. She had to give up her law career. She had to pull the emergency release in her cyropod and sit next to her husband’s frozen corpse as her own limbs thawed. She had to loot her deceased neighbors’ home just for basic food and water. She had to kill people again and again and again. Above everything, she had to deal with the fact that she was a failure. She had let her son been taken right in front of her. She had let that man shoot Nate. She could still the echo of that gunshot off the metal walls of the vault. She had failed her one job as a mother: to keep her child safe and happy. If Nate had survived, he would have already found Shaun. 

Rather than answer Hancock’s question, she slammed the door in his face before he could see the tears in her eyes. 

He knocked again and she opened the door.

“What the hell was that O’Malley?” He nearly screamed at her. 

“I told you, none of my past is your business.” The voice wasn’t Nora’s, it was stronger and had a much sharper edge than anything she had ever said before. 

It seemed to make him back down a bit, “I just wanted you to know that you don’t have to explain anything that the vault tec rep said to you. I understand the want to be a different person.”

That made her feel a bit bad for the way she was acting. It was not right to be hateful towards him just because she had been caught in her own lie. 

“I think I just want to go to bed.” 

“I’ll see you in the morning, right?” 

“Yeah.” She shut the door softly. 

She laid down on the bed, still in her outside clothes, and wished she still had her soft pajamas. It was something so stupid and minor to want right now that it made her laugh aloud. It was odd to really laugh. It almost sounded unnatural to her. It was in the moments where she was alone she was able to be herself the most. She knew she would not have that for a while, so she decided to revel in it.

She finally let a little of the anger and sadness that had been building up out. It was like turning a sensitive valve; she had to be careful to not let all of it out at once. She allowed herself to feel her way through bits and pieces of the past. Then she remembered that there was a place called the Memory Den nearby and it had those strange looking chairs. Maybe there would be a pre-war ghoul she could converse with there. 

She waited a little bit only so that she could be sure that Hancock was long gone. Then she left her room knowing the dog would be a sufficient guard against thieves. 

A few minutes later, she stood before the business and its red neon lights. She went in and saw a woman laying on a chaise on a small platform near the middle of the room. The woman was dressed in a tattered red Baroque style dress and corset. At least it was not revolutionary war themed. Nora might have screamed if it was. 

“What exactly is this place?” Nora asked.

“It’s a place where people can relive the past.” The woman said. 

It seemed that the future already had a lot of people trying to live in the past. 

“What exactly do you mean?” 

She motioned towards the strange chairs, “Those are called memory loungers. Let’s you relive memories.” 

Nora felt her heart lift a bit. She could see her mother and father again. She could see her friends again. She could see Nate and Shaun alive and happy again. 

“How much?” Nora would pay anything.

“I don’t let just anyone take a stroll into the past. It’s addicting, and quite frankly, I’m not taking new clients right now.”

Nora wanted this too bad, “Please, I will pay you however much it takes.” She was basically begging.

“Look, we are full for the night anyway. Come back in a few weeks, and I’ll see what we can do.”

“Please.” 

“No, come back in a few weeks.” 

Nora was pretty let down, but decided that it was time for some sleep. She went back to her room and went to bed. 

The next morning, she got up and went to get Hancock. To her surprise, he was already ready to go. 

“He gave a big speech as soon as the sun thought about coming up.” Fahrenheit mentioned as she walked by.

Nora could believe that. Hancock seemed like a man who enjoyed a bit of showboating, but she could let it pass this time. After all, he should let his citizens know that their leader was heading out for a bit.

“I’m surprised you didn’t try to sneak away last night without me.” He said in greeting.

Why hadn’t she thought of that? She doubted that it would have actually worked, but she still could have tried it.

“Honestly, so am I.” 

He laughed at that, “So, ready to go?”

“Yeah.” 

She had decided that it was best for her pup to live in Sanctuary Hills with her current favorite revolutionary war reenactor, mainly because she did not want to have worry about him in a bad fire fight. So that’s the direction they went. Her goal was to be out of ruins of Boston and on the open road by sundown. 

They walked the winding streets of Boston in silence for awhile, carefully darting between alleys and crumbled buildings. It seemed that neither of them wanted a fire fight yet. Once they had made it out of the ruins of Boston and were a safe distance away, Hancock finally decided to break the silence that had settled between them. 

“So, where exactly are we going?” 

“Sanctuary Hills.” She responded curtly. 

“Don’t think I’ve heard of it.”

She didn’t respond. She just kept walking. She really wanted him to get the hint that she just did not want to talk but he didn’t.

“So, what’s your son like?”

“My son?”

“Yeah, you know the one you are searching for?’ 

“I was just a bit surprised that you cared. No one else really has.” 

“We are all dealin’ with our own problems. Tell me about him.” He encouraged her. 

“His name is Shaun and he’s not even a year old yet. Sweetest little thing. At least I think so.” Her heart felt heavy just talking about Shaun. 

“You know, I always wanted kids.” He was wistful.

“Yeah?” 

“Yeah.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She immediately heard her mistake. “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to pry.”

“It’s ok. We are traveling together, and at some point, we are going to have trust each other a little bit. Anyway, to answer the question, just never found the right person and then I became a ghoul.”

She nodded, “I understand.”

They kept on in silence for a bit, her dog walking happily near them. She wanted to tell Hancock that she could relate to never finding the right person, but simply thinking that felt like an affront to Nate’s memory. She wondered what she would tell Shaun about his father. She knew that she would not keep his father’s memory from him, but what could she say to a little boy that had no memory of him? 

As they walked and it grew a little colder out, she began to shiver a bit. 

“Maybe we should stop for the night.” Hancock suggested. 

“We still have some light. We should keep moving.”

“It’s only going to get colder when the sun sets; we should set up camp so that we can be warm when the sun does set.” He tried to explain his position. 

Hancock was clearly a man used to having his way. Nora wanted to refuse on principal alone, but she also wanted to not catch something that would put her out for a few more weeks.

“Fine. We will find a place soon.” 

They found a small bit of flat land surrounded by a few trees near the road. There was a beauty to how nature had taken the world back from the humans who had stolen it all for themselves. The roads were all partially overgrown and everywhere Nora had been, some sort of vegetation had grown back. Maybe humans had been the problem with the world the entire time. It was easy to blame human nature instead of taking responsibility for the ways in which the old world had failed.  
She watched Hancock set up his tent after she had finished laying out her bedroll for the night. She was a bit envious of the tent, but told herself that it was better to travel as light as possible. Hancock looked at her very light setup.

“There’s plenty of room in here.” He motioned to the tent.

“I’m good, thanks.”

His eyes grew wide as he realized the implications of what he had said, “I didn’t mean it like that.”

Nora was not sure if she believed him or not, but decided to be diplomatic about the whole situation.

“I like to sleep underneath the stars.” It was the most graceful recovery she could come up with on the spot. 

“Yeah, I guess if you lived in a vault, it’s been awhile since you’ve seen them.”

“I’ve actually never seen them as bright as this.” 

“Really?” Hancock seemed a bit amazed.

“Yeah, when I was a girl, there was too much light. It drowned them out. Some of my school friends wanted to be astronauts, but I didn’t want to explore what I could barely see.” She said wistfully.

It had been so long ago. Elementary and middle school seemed so far removed from her even before the war. God, what were their names?

“There you go bullshitting again.” Hancock groaned.

“I’m not!” She insisted. 

She watched as he began to try and start a fire, “Won’t that attract something to our campsite?”

“It might, but it’s better than you shivering half to death.”

“I’m not that cold!”

He laughed at that. “Is that why you are shivering?”

She decided not to respond. He lit a cigarette and began to puff on it. She wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“You really don’t like cigs.” Hancock remarked.

She shrugged. 

“Y’know, I think I’m starting to figure you out O’Malley.”

“Yeah? Finally determine that I’m not lying to you?” 

“No, you are definitely a bullshitter. I think you like to make yourself suffer.” 

“I disagree. Why would I want to suffer?”

“I get the distinct feeling that you romanticize suffering, O’Malley. That you think that if you suffer enough, whatever shitty things you’ve done in the past will be forgiven and I am going to tell you now that it isn’t how it works. I know that you are new to all of this, but the world will make you suffer enough. Take it from someone who knows. Suffering for the sake of suffering is not going to get Shaun back,” He paused and then gently added, “nor will it bring your husband back.”

She was livid. He had no right to assume that she secretly enjoyed suffering, to assume that she had somehow wished this upon herself. The cool air around her cooled her red hot cheeks, but it did not cool her anger. She hoped that he could see her anger even in the dark. 

“Don’t you dare bring Nate int- wait, how do you know about Nate?” 

Had this ghoul secretly have a part in her husband’s murder?

“MacCready told me.”

Nora groaned. “I can’t believe he would betray my confidence.”

“Yeah, well, people aren’t as trustworthy as you’re used to.”

“How do I know I can trust you then?” She asked,.

“You don’t.”

That was a scary thought. Had he walked all this way so that he could kill her for the whole strongroom thing? 

Maybe she deserved it. After all, it’s not like her hands were clean and she had tried to rob someone. 

“How do you know you can trust me?” She asked, attempting to be threatening. 

“Well, even if I can’t, you don’t look that much of a threat.” He laughed it off. 

While true, she did want to be at least a little threatening. It was basically the apocalypse version of being called beautiful to her at this point. Hancock definitely looked like a threat with his weathered skin and double barreled shotgun. She should’ve bought something like that instead of the sniper rifle she had strapped to her back. She didn’t know why she had bought it, it had just spoken to her in the shop. Between the rifle and pistol, she could at least do some damage. 

“- you should probably buy some armor at the next settlement.”

“Huh?” She had gotten lost in her thoughts. 

“I was saying that you should some sort of armor at the next settlement we come by.”

“Yeah, maybe. Anyway, I’m tired, we should get some rest.”

“Want me to take the first watch?” 

Oh, there were two of them. She didn’t know why she hadn’t been the first one to come up that idea.

“I’d appreciate it.” She was sincere. 

“Well, if I’m taking the first watch anyway, why don’t you put your bedroll inside the tent? It’ll be warmer and there’s space.”

She thought about refusing, but it was cold and as long as he wasn’t in the tent, it would be fine. He had been right earlier: she doesn’t need to make herself more than she has to, even if part of her really wanted to. The stars were almost pretty enough to stay out and watch, but she knew that, assuming she did not get herself killed, she would have a life time to see them. 

“Yeah, thanks.” She moved her small bedroom into the tent. 

She laid down and tried to sleep, but all she could think about how insane she must actually be. She heard Nate’s mother’s voice in her head: “She will be a lovely bride, but there’s something wrong with her head.” She was not suppose to hear that discussion at their engagement party, but her mother-in-law had not been known to be a quiet woman and she could hear it through the door. At the time, she thought that her mother-in-law simply of disapproved her, but in light of everything recently, maybe her mother-in-law had been right. 

She didn’t know when or how she fell asleep; all she knew was that her dreams were plagued by terror.


End file.
